Crustless Primal Cheesecake

May 6, 2011

Just in time for Mother’s Day! I actually made this cheesecake for Easter, and it was a big hit. The texture was awesome, and it held together great without a crust. And there’s no flour in it either! (You’d be surprised how many cheesecake recipes call for flour…) The other thing I love about it is that there’s no sugar, and only 1/2 cup honey for the whole cake. It definitely doesn’t taste like honey though, which I think is a plus. Creamy, smooth, and not too sweet – this is my go to cheesecake recipe! Dress it up with a dollop of honey-sweetened whipped cream and some berry “sauce” – a perfect dessert worthy of any occasion.

Ingredients:

1 kg cream cheese

1/2 cup honey

1 tsp grated lemon rind

2 eggs

2 egg yolks

2/3 cup sour cream

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.

Grease bottom of 9-inch springform pan and line the sides with parchment paper. Wrap the bottom of the spring form pan in a double layer of tin foil, going as high up the sides as possible.

2. Beat honey and lemon rind with cream cheese.

3. Stir in eggs and yolk, individually.

4. Stir in sour cream.

5. Pour batter into springform pan.

6. Place springform pan into large pan and pour in hot water so it comes 1” up the side of the springform pan.

7. Bake for approximately 1 hour until surface appears less shiny and edges look set. Try not to open the oven while it’s baking so that the cake doesn’t fall prematurely. Also, be gentle with it when taking it out of the oven. It’ll still likely to fall quite a bit, and that’s okay.

8. Cool cheesecake, cover, and place in fridge for approximately 6 hours.

Sauce: For the berry “sauce”, heat berries on the stove until they’ve melted into a sauce. You can add some honey to make it more syrup-like, or some alcohol to enhance the flavor, but I find it tastes fine all on its own as well. I usually use frozen berries, which don’t tend to need any additional liquid, but if you’re using fresh berries, some water or juice may be helpful to reach the desired consistency.

Hey, I’m glad you’re enjoying my blog, thanks for stopping by! :) Yeah, if you add in some alcohol or honey, you can sort of reduce it / cook it until it gets a little syrupy.. But if you’re just keeping it simple, just cook the berries until they get to the consistency you want.. I usually use frozen berries, so they get mushy pretty easily. If the sauce is too dry, you could also add in some juice, and slightly reduce that.

This looks great! Silly question, but I’ve never baked a cheesecake before (primal or not), so I was wondering if you absolutely need to put the springform pan into another pan with water in it? My pans have some plastic parts on the handle so I wouldn’t want to put that into the oven…

The water bath creates a more even and gentle heat source for the cheesecake, as well as keeps the moisture level in the oven high. Without it, your cheesecake is liable to crack, which isn’t a huge deal. More importantly though, it increases the chances of the cheesecake not being evenly cooked through. Have you scoured your kitchen for any other pans that might be unconventional to cheesecake baking? Like maybe a large roasting pan that the springform would fit into?

This looks amazing, and I just put mine in the oven. Wow! I’m stoked! The only sad part is I have to wait until tomorrow to try it, and since it’s for a dinner party, there probably won’t be leftovers.

Quick question, though… How many lemons makes 1 tsp. of rind? I went over the whole surface of my lone lemon, and still came up short.

One lemon should give you at least 1 tsp of zest, if not 2+. Was it a small lemon? :P Or perhaps the zester didn’t go deep enough and just got the very surface? I wouldn’t sweat it, I’d say the zest of one lemon is more than plenty. I hope everyone loves it!

Just made this last night, topped with whipped cream and homemade honeyed almonds. SO GOOD. These are the types of things that have made the transition into primal eating so much easier for my husband. This and meatza :)

I did 3 parts regular cream cheese and 1 part strawberry cream cheese. Instead of the lemon rind, I grated in a frozen strawberry! Turned out fantastic! I love how the ingredients can be tweaked and will still produce a phenomenal cake!

I’m confused. Everything I’ve read says dairy is not allowed on the Paleo diet. I can’t eat it anyway because I’m allergic to it, but I was all excited to try a Paleo Cheesecake recipe and I don’t see how this qualifies as Paleo. Can you explain?

It’s a “primal” cheesecake, not a paleo cheesecake. Dairy is allowed on a “primal” diet. If you’re looking for a paleo one, I’ve seen recipes with creamed cashews. Although some people (like me) are on the fence about whether cashews are paleo (legumes).

I think I’ll try this recipe to bring over to my Aunt’s next week. I’d like to do it with a crust though. Any recipe suggestions for a nut-based crust? Would I have to prebake the crust then bake the filling?

Any nut-based crust should work – I don’t typically use crusts, so I don’t have one that I can recommend. But I just did a quick google, and there are lots of options out there, depending on which nut you’d like to use. I think a macadamia nut crust would go especially nice with a cheesecake, but other nuts should be lovely as well. Typically, you bake the crust first, and then add the filling and bake it again. Let me know how it turns out!